Election Day 8:00 p.m.

The Oregon polls closed at 8 p.m. PST Tuesday night with people still lined up to drop off their ballots or vote in person at the Lane County Elections Office. The voting process doesn’t end there. Just behind the doors, a flurry of action took place to ensure all votes were counted and voting Oregonians had their voice heard. 

When a ballot gets dropped off, it goes through a stringent process of sorting, signature review, deconstruction, reconciliation and finally adjudication. Observers nominated by both parties are allowed to observe the vote count process, separated from all workers validating Oregon’s mail-in ballots. 

Ron has been an election observer for the Democratic party for 10 years worth of elections.  He said this was the busiest night he’s seen.

He observes the voting process because he believes it “completes the loop” of understanding how the voting process works. Ron is a part of the election integrity caucus and believes that security measures in the voting process are very important. 

Ron stayed away from the national results to focus on the Oregon ballot count. 

John, a Republican and Oregon native who originally came to help with the vote count, sat in the deconstruction room intently watching as workers tamped ballots against the tables. He was feeling optimistic about the national results, although he was concerned about the validity of the election results. “I have a strange feeling something bad is happening,” he said. “The [2020] election was absolutely rigged.” [There is no evidence of systematic voter fraud in the 2020 election.]

As a property manager in Lane County, he believes that renters’ votes should count less than property owners. “If I could wave a magic wand and go back to a time when you owned property to vote, I would.” 
To him, the three most important issues this election are inflation, border protection and protecting property. “This land is our home,” he said. He hopes President Trump will deport everyone who “tresspasses” or who are illegal immigrants. 

Election Day 8:50 p.m.

Josephine Miller, a junior at the University of Oregon and a Kamala Harris supporter, kept one eye on homework and the other on the election Tuesday night, “anxiously tracking each new update.” As news broke that Trump had secured North Carolina, she said, “My heart just sank, and I’m feeling physically ill.”

Miller had been following the election closely, refreshing her screen every few minutes. “I can’t concentrate on anything else,” she said. For her, the idea of another four years with Trump in office is “deeply troubling.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen if he wins again,” she said. “It feels like everything I care about is on the line right now.”

Election Day 8:47 p.m.

Among the crowd at the Lane County Republican Party watch party, Katherine Nordstrand waits for local election results. Despite feeling confident that Trump will win, she worries about Oregon’s future. “Oregon is hard on the farmers,” she said. She worries that Democratic Party representatives are making it difficult for second-generation farmers to succeed.

On a national level, Nordstrand believes that the country has shifted away from traditional religious values, and as someone with a strong sense of faith, this upsets her. “There’s a strong emphasis on transgenderism and gay marriage,” she said. A believer in family values, Nordstrand thinks groups like Black Lives Matter have perpetuated harmful messaging to hurt American families. “Black Lives Matter wasn’t about the blacks, it was about the queers,” she said. “They want no fathers in the family.” She is hopeful that a Trump victory will fix the issues she sees in modern America.

Election Day 8:44 p.m.

Ben Dieter, a Eugene husband and father, anxiously watches over the dance studio he works at. While the kids dance in the last class of the night, Ben checks his phone every 10 minutes to track the votes. “I’m feeling more nervous than I thought I was going to,” he said, as Trump was currently ahead in the electoral count. Dieter said that whenever we discover who wins, “I would like to see some civility between the two candidates regardless of which way it goes.”